


Morning After

by sardonicsmiley



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Awkward First Times, Good Sex, Humor, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, poor communication, post sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-21
Updated: 2008-09-21
Packaged: 2021-01-13 15:22:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21155501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sardonicsmiley/pseuds/sardonicsmiley
Summary: Would it be easier for you if I pretended I was still asleep? Because I'm not going to do that. I'm going to shower.





	Morning After

**Author's Note:**

> So, about the poll last night. Feathers technically won, but the bat-like got about a ton of convincing arguments in the comments, and won my heart. And muse. So. Bat-like it is. Not that that has anything at all to do with this fic.

John wakes up warm.

His mind is sleepy and thick, heavy with dreams, and the heat soaking into his skin makes him want to sink deeper into the mattress and ignore the alarm blaring somewhere off to the left. It's just that the warmth is so novel. John's a southern boy, born and bred, and he'd never quite adjusted to the cold nights they got out here in the middle of the ocean.

Over the last four years, John's gotten used to waking up with freezing hands and feet, at best. And since wearing a sweatshirt to bed and layering on the blankets isn't always feasible, most of the time it's worse than that. The Ancients, apparently, had specialized in drafty as hell rooms.

Now, though, now he's warm like he can't remember being for ages. It reminds him of sleeping curled up beside a furnace, bone deep heat that's soaking down into him, lining the spaces beneath his skin and filling his chest with something that makes John smile.

He sighs happily, mostly asleep, and stretches out, groping a hand out for the alarm.

And that's about when his bed jerks, sputtering, and John has time for a cut-off shout before he's sitting on his ass on the floor, sheets tangled around his hips. In the bed, Rodney McKay sits bolt upright, stark naked, one hand pressed over his right eye, glaring at John and spitting accusingly, "That better have been your finger. It was your finger, wasn't it? I'm pretty sure I felt fingernail."

John opens his mouth and forgets to close it again, his brain slowly untangling from the heavy knot of sleep. Rodney is in his bed. Actually, John thinks when he cuts a quick look to the side, he had been in Rodney's bed. Which makes sense. That's where he had fallen asleep.

John's pretty sure he intended to wake up sometime in the pre-dawn to go back to his own room. He can even, vaguely, remember mumbling as much against Rodney's shoulder hours ago, the other man grunting in acknowledgment and settling a big hand on John's back.

Outside, the sun is firmly post-dawn. John can't breathe. The alarm is still going off.

On the bed, Rodney shifts, the ire on his face washing out. Rodney heaves a sigh, dropping his hand, his eyelid red and irritated, and apparently John really did poke him hard. Rodney's voice is oddly flat, "It's okay, John," the words spoken as he pulls the fitted sheet off his mattress, dragging it up over his shoulders and standing, slapping his hand down on the alarm.

The smile Rodney flashes John is all flat and stiff. It looks odd and wrong on his face, especially with his hair still messy and flattened from sleep, with the stubble across his jaw, with the sleep caught in the corners of his eyes. Rodney says, voice sharp as razors, "Would it be easier for you if I pretended I was still asleep? Because I'm not going to do that. I'm going to shower."

He does. John finally manages to close his mouth when he hears the bathroom down slide shut. A half second later John hears the water come on, imagining Rodney under it, scrubbing his skin pink and clean. It's not like John's brain doesn't know how that looks.

But it's different, now. There was naked Rodney before, in the locker room post-mission, more than a few times off-world, one awkward incident where John had walked into Rodney's room while the other man was toweling at his wet hair. Now there's naked Rodney _after_, and John closes his eyes, seeing the other man's face, the way it had looked last night in the moonlight, bottom lip caught between his teeth, eyelashes dark against flushed skin, John's thumb stroking across his jaw.

John is still sitting on the floor when Rodney comes out of the bathroom. John's still hard, too, breathing faster than he should be, hands fisted up in the sheets he's tangled up in. Rodney blinks at him, towel slung around his hips, arms crossing over his chest, raising one eyebrow, expression more eloquent than John thinks should be humanly possible.

John clears his throat and says, "Look," and then, because he hasn't really gotten any farther than that in his own head, "Look." The words still aren't coming. John coughs into his hand, and waves an arm, hoping that perhaps body language will convey all the things that need to be communicated here.

By the skeptical look Rodney is giving him, John figures that it isn't.

John settles for blurting, when Rodney just keeps staring at him, "Look, the sex was good."

Rodney blinks at him, and then rolls his eyes, shrugging with one shoulder, "If by 'good', you mean we both managed to successfully get off, then, yes, I suppose we could loosely define the sex as _good_," like he's having sex with everyone, and last night was no big deal. Like it was just something that happened.

John narrows his eyes, pushing to his feet, shoving aside the disquieting fact that he's pretty much wearing the sheets like a particularly debauched toga. He remembers last night. He remembers Rodney's hands gripping at his arms, Rodney's voice going thick and hoarse around John's name, the way Rodney had kissed him afterwards.

John says, "Don't do that."

And Rodney's chin goes up, his mouth tilting down in a weird counterbalance. "I'm sorry, is this where I'm supposed to grovel for the chance to further be bashed in the ribs by your bony elbows and deal with your predisposition for slobbering?"

"I do not slobber," the response is automatic and Rodney rolls his eyes, waving a hand scornfully. John feels himself frowning, stepping forward, "I do not—" and he cuts himself off, because this is getting them nowhere. John huffs out a breath, rubbing at the bridge of his nose and counting slowly to ten. "Look, can we try this again?" John motions at the bed, just in case Rodney isn't following his, admittedly, somewhat open ended intentions.

Just in case the answer is no, John keeps his gaze on the floor, holding his breath. When he hears the bed creak, an eternity later, he sucks in a deep breath, letting it out shakily. His muscles are burning from how tightly he's holding himself, and John tries to shake his arms out. It doesn't really work.

He turns towards the bed anyway. Rodney is sitting on the side, hands on his thighs, towel still twisting around his hips. His hair is wet and dark across his forehead, and he looks more curious than anything else. John is pretty sure that's a good thing.

John sucks in a deep breath, and says, "Okay," walking slowly to the other side of the narrow bed and sitting down. The mattress is stripped bare now, and John presses his hand down against it, testing the give, stalling for time.

And then Rodney sighs impatiently, flopping down onto his back, grabbing John's shoulders as he goes and pulling. For a half-second, John fights it, before remembering that this is what he wanted, and going with it. They end up sprawled across the mattress, John's chin tucked up against Rodney's shoulder, one of Rodney's arms around John's back, sheets and towels caught between them.

Rodney says, his thumb brushing across John's skin, "Can we skip the part where you poke me in the eye this time?" And John snorts on a laugh, so stupidly relieved he doesn't know how to breathe around it, pushing himself up onto an elbow, leaning over Rodney.

For a second, Rodney even allows the scrutiny, but he's never patient or still for very long. Rodney says, "You're an idiot, you know that?" reaching up and pulling John down, kissing him, pushing back a half second later to say, "Oh, God, and you have to go brush your teeth right now."

John smiles.


End file.
